Our First Boxing Day

We have received a report from Ceilidh of the Piggyville Girls!

"The Piggyville Girls were excited to read the recent blog post about Boxing Day.  We know our friends the Prairie Pigs and the Piggyfriends celebrate Boxing Day on December 26.  We do not have this holiday in the U.S., but after reading the blog post, we realized its significance to guinea pigs and have decided to take on this new tradition.  To mark the occasion, my sister Shannon was inspired to design and build a special cardboard box for our first Boxing Day!"

"Here is Shannon, proudly showing off her creation.  As you can see, she has quite a flair for architecture and has used available materials, like a cardboard tube and a paper bag, to enhance the entrance and produce a lovely extra play area for us. (I am not as imaginative as my sister, but I did help with the decoration by chewing around the edges for that nice lacy effect.)"

 

Piggyfriends make New Year Resolutions

 It is hard to make a New Year Resolution like the humans do.

 

 

Benedict Piggyfriend is thinking about what to write. " I cannot give up chocolate and Slave would worry if I wanted to lose weight. What can I write with my pen? I know!!"

"This will make Slave happy as I always leave my cucumber."

" I know that she wants me to eat it as it is good for us piggies so maybe I could try."

" How about this Slave?"

 

" I may have to think about this some more," says Benedict. " Have the rest of you Piggyfriends written anything yet? This is hard."

Guinea Pigs Make New Year's Resolutions Too!

 It has been a whirlwind year for Charlotte and Emily, the newest Prairie Pigs.  They were born in early March, spent six weeks with their mum and were then shipped to a pet store, where they were sold to a family of rambunctious kids.  Fortunately, the kids' parents were keeping an eye on things, and soon concluded the kids were not gentle enough for small pets like baby guinea pigs. Less than a month after leaving Mum, Charlotte and Emily ended up at the local Humane Society shelter.

Then their fortunes improved!  Here at the Prairie Pigs, Lovely Rita had been rambling around by herself in a double-size cage, and Slave had been watching for a chance to find her some friends.  When she heard there were two little girl piggies at the shelter, she headed off to scoop them up before the shelter had even had a chance to post their pigtures.

Here are Lovely Rita and her new protégées soon after they arrived, enjoying some grass for the first time.  As you can see, Charlotte and Emily were tiny and at first, they were very respectful and followed all LR's orders very well.  Now, eight months later, they are rebellious teenagers, but Lovely Rita is a big girl who is ready and able to lay down the law (though Charlotte is a bossy little thing who tests the limits regularly).  Emily is still the smallest, but she is feisty and so quick she can evade her two cagemates with ease.  Little by little, they have worked out the power structure and made peace with each other, as piggies almost always do.

Still, there is always room for improvement, and the three Girlies have decided to celebrate their first New Year's together at the Prairie Pigs by each making a New Year's Resolution.

Lovely Rita's Resolution is to be more patient with the little girls --- unless they are trying to steal a dandelion green right out of her mouth, of course: even the most saintly piggy could not be expected to put up with that!

Charlotte's Resolution is to be a better pig person: not to steal food from LR and Emily (or perhaps to do it less frequently, anyhow) and not to argue so much about who gets to sit where.  She is really working on this.  Here is a rare photo of Charlotte sitting peacefully and thoughtfully, not bothering anyone! 

Emily's Resolution is to EAT EVERYTHING!!!  She is tired of always being the pipsqueak and intends to become such a humongous piggy that she will never again have to worry about LR and Charlotte trying to muscle her away from the food dish.  

Do your piggies have New Year's Resolutions?  Let us know!  In the meantime, all of the Prairie Pigs would like to wish the Undercover Guinea Pigs community out there a very Happy New Year and a peaceful, happy and healthy 2024!

Happy New Year 2024

Everypig at Piggyfriends would like to wish our readers a Very Happy and Carrotful New Year 2024.

Caoimhe was in charge of party arrangements.....

..........but Tamworth drank too much of the carrot wine and had to be helped home by the staff.

See you all in 2024. Take care everyone and watch that carrot wine. It is potent stuff!

A Very Happy Boxing Day from the Prairie Pigs!

 "What ho, Tiny Human," says Arthur Pendragon.  "I like you!  At last, a piggy-sized human!  I think you and I could be friends and hang out together!"

Arthur is here to wish everyone a Happy Boxing Day: that is a holiday celebrated on the day after Christmas in the U.K. and Canada, and since piggies love a good cardboard box to renovate or nap in better than almost anything, it is considered a sort of special guinea pig holiday.  (We think the humans might have originally intended it as a day to box up Christmas leftovers to take to those less fortunate, but since piggies seldom have any leftovers at all, celebrating the humble but versatile cardboard box works better for us...)

P.S.  That card behind Arthur with the Christmas tree and the two piggies travelled all the way from England, sent by our Auntie Penny and always has a place of honour!

Merry Christmas to all our Readers!!

 

Bella here. On behalf of the herd of Piggyfriends, I would like to wish all of our readers a very Happy Christmas with stockings full of carrots, cucumbers, chicory, lettuce and whatever you like best. 

Personally I like grass best of all and our Slave's son has come to stay and will be fulfilling that need.

Happy Holidays everyone and everypig. xxxx

Slave says Nollaig Shona, which she assures me means Happy Christmas but I only speak Pig.

Confused Piggies

 

 

"Look at these toy piggies!" says Cobweb. " They look very much like my best friend, Tamworth."

"Look at these toy piggies!" says Tamworth. " They look very much like me."

"Oh that is you this time," says Cobweb. " Let us ask the staff to hang the toys on the tree so that I don't get confused."

" That is better," says Cobweb, " now they won't be given our carrots by mistake."

We Are Very Excited About the Holidays!

We received some early holiday presents and were so pleased that we asked our mom to take a photo! Here we are with our jukebox that lights up and plays Christmas songs. We love the way it looks and sounds. One of our mom's friends sent it to us, along with the cool fireplace that is safe for us to sit by since it operates on batteries (and, well, is not a real fire).

We hope all of you enjoy the holidays and have as much fun with your presents as we are having!

P.S. Scottie says he thinks "cool fireplace" is a contradiction, but he laughed when I typed it so it will stay. Humor is very important.

Best wishes from Scottie and Coke.

Helping

 

The Piggyfriends are helping their Slave sort out the Christmas decorations. Fionn is being a good boy and is......

.....rewarded for his efforts with a piece of his favourite red pepper. It is a pity that black pigs don't show up as well in our little photos but Slave knew that he would sit nicely.

On the other hand, some pigs are being less than helpful...

.......aren't you Peaches? That celery is for you to eat. Not the decorations please!

"I don't mind wearing this hat", says Peaches," especially when I can have a piece of pepper."

Would you like to see an outtake? Here is Peaches behaving badly......

We hope that you are helping your Slaves get ready for Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!!!!

 

The Piggyville Girls received an early Christmas visitor.  Her name is Choco.

She is a You Tube and TV star from Japan. She stars in the Japanese Anime series "Pui Pui Molcar", which translates to Pui Pui CavyCar. She and her many cavy friends bring cheer to children, adults and guinea pigs around the world.

Shannon aka the "blonde bombshell and Ceilidh aka the "black blob" are starstruck. They do not know what to say to Choco.

I am sure that, after watching a few of her videos, they will realise that she speaks Guinea Pig, the universal language of love.

Happy Holidays from Piggyville in Swannanoa, North Carolina!!

Cheers from Shannon,  Ceilidh and Choco.

Birthday Present.

 Slave gave her son a 3D printer for Christmas last year and for her recent birthday, he made her this and painted him.

A guinea pig Samurai warrior. He said that there are other piggy patterns to make different models like a king, an army and a bard so more may be coming our way. The guy that uploads them calls himself Cavy Forge so if anyone has access to a 3D printer, piggies can be yours.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We, Scottie and Coke, would like to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it! (I, Scottie, am on the left, and Coke wants to note, though it is obvious, that he is on the right.)

As you see, aided by a colorful cloth pumpkin, we are practising being grateful. Here are some of the things we are grateful for:

We get along now. For a long time we didn't, but our mom didn't give up. Now we stand side by side to eat hay, we rest near one another, and we are very good (well, mostly good) about sharing.

Veggies! Need we say more?

Some fruits, too.

And hay. Mom bought us some orchard-grass hay, and we are particularly enjoying it, though we love timothy hay, too. Just call us love-hay guys.

Our house. It's roomy and has lots of "furniture" in it -- sofas, cozies, an A-frame made of wood, and so on.

Floor time. Our floor area is under our house and has more furniture.

Our PVC tube. It's how we are transported from one place to the other.

Oops, there's more, and, I, Scottie am typing, but Coke says, "Less is more," so I think that means I should end my list. Might I add, Coke, that we are thankful for the blog?

Halloween on the Frosty Prairies

Charlotte and Emily were so excited to go trick or treating around the neighbourhood that they would not sit still for me to take pigtures until this morning.  Charlotte got the coveted dragon costume this year while Emily was a bumblebee.  They looked so cute!  

There is snow on the ground already here so I had to carry them in my pockets from house to house, but they had a wonderful time (though not all of the houses were prepared with veggies and I had to slip some carrots and cilantro to a few folks who were startled to see guinea pigs out doing the rounds). 

A fun time was had by all!

Happy Halloween!

Coke and Scottie here, ready to go out and gather some guinea-pig goodies for trick-or-wheek!

I, Coke, am standing in front of my special sign to wish everyone a fun night while finding excellent carrots, parsley, cucumber, hay, and so on. Isn't that what goes in our bags?

I, Scottie, am wondering about the things creeping up on me. It seems there are a lot of spider webs, a skeletal hand, and some ghosts themselves. However, I will be a good boy and share the festive bag with Coke, once we persuade the hand to leave!

Scottie and Coke Are Friends !!!

Coke here. You might remember that we recently lost Fitz, and of course Scottie and I were both very sad. Our mom had always hoped we'd live together as a trio but that never quite worked out, so we had shared our time with Fitz who graciously moved from cage to cage.

When Fitz passed away, our mom wasn't sure we'd ever get along. However, after several weeks, she re-introduced us on neutral territory, and things went pretty well.  Okay, that really means I decided to give Scottie a chance. It's possible that I might be, um, a little pushy from time to time.

One night I kept climbing the bars of my own house, and my mom thought I was telling her I wanted to be with Scottie. She was right! The rest is now history.

Here you will see us happily eating hay together, surrounded by our PVC tube (in front), various cozies, and so on. In the second photo I've decided to use a paper bag as a sleeping bag and am comfortably sacked out. (I need to ask my mom if that is a pun.)  Excuse my poop but I was trying to show that the bag was for my use and, well, a poop seemed logical.

We hope you can tell that Scottie and I are very pleased to be together!

More New Piggyfriends.

It has taken us a while to bring you up to date with our other new Piggyfriends. We need Slave's help to extract the camera card as it is too small and fiddly for our paws but she has been spending far too much time painting the outside of our house. Doesn't she realise that piggy announcements are far more important than painting? 

Anyway....here they are...

When Slave and her son were at Pooh Piglets rescue, they were putting Cobweb and Tamworth into their carrier to come home when Pauline said that she had two more boars needing a home. Slave always has an extra carrier in the car  "just in case" and it seldom comes home empty.

Pauline opened the hutch and they could see one piggy that Slave said looked just like our Caoimhe so out he came. He is the one on the right in the pigture. Then Pauline lifted out his brother, who is a Sheltie. 

As we said in our previous post, once Slave has picked up a piggy, they never go back into the hutch. These little boys are older than our other newbies but are not quite full grown.

After lots of cuddles and a free haircut for the Sheltie, they all came home.

This little fellow is the Sheltie and he has a nice brown stripe down the middle of his nose. Neither of them had names so Slave has called this one Benedict.

And here is the Caoimhe lookalike, whom she has named Dominic.

Here they are together. Slave thinks that our US readers will have another name for the Sheltie breed but she cannot remember what it is. Too much painting we say! He is like a Peruvian but his long hair grows back from his face instead of having a fringe. 

While we were typing this ( and it takes a long time with everypig trying to "help" ) she thought that the Shelties might be called Silkies in the US. Is that right? Maybe a reader will correct us.

As Pauline had several families waiting outside the piggy shed, she never got to hear their back story but they are safe now here at Piggyfriends and are eating everything in sight except for cucumber, which they ignore! More for the rest of the herd! Slave has lots of them growing in her greenhouse. Yum yum!

Welcome New Piggyfriends!

There are always a lot of wonderful piggies needing homes at Pooh Piglets Rescue in Haywards Heath, which is about a 45 minute drive from Piggyfriends.

Slave and her son went to see them last week and came home with these two little boars.

 

They are not related but Pauline, the lovely lady who runs this rescue, paired them up and when Slave and her son arrived, they were the first two that Pauline lifted out of their hutch and gave out one pig to each of them.

Having picked up a piggy, it is impossible to put him back ( according to Slave ) so these little guys came home with her.

Slave always takes a long time to choose names for us but she finally settled on Tamworth for the orange fellow on the left. Here he is again.

Slave told us that there is a breed of orange coloured farm pig called Tamworths. They are only babes but Tamworth is a couple of months older than......

.......Cobweb, the little white babe above. They are both what Slave calls "nearly Abbies" in that they have a few rosettes in their coats but not as many as a true Abby.

They are still a little nervous coming to a strange new home but Cobweb behaved better for our little photoshoot than Tamworth. See the outtake below......

If you would like to see two more additions to the Piggyfriend herd, watch this space!

And don't forget. If you live in the SE of England and have room for more piggies, give Pooh Piglets a call. You can read about the rescue on their Facebook page where you will find the phone number.

Happy May Day!

Hello Readers.

It is May Day today and I was supposed to be the Piggyfriends May Queen. Spring has been very late this year in England and Slave could not find any may flowers to make me a crown.

There are some tight buds on the may in our hedge but it will need a lot of sun to make them open. So she looked around the garden for some other flowers. There are many flowers out there like daffodils, hyacinths and bluebells but Slave told me that most flowers from bulbs are toxic so she picked these forget me nots for me just in case I decided to take a nibble.

Not quite what I was expecting but at least I had my photo taken. Perhaps I should say " Happy Forget Me Not Day" instead.

Lovely Rita Has a New Easter Bonnet!

Our favourite guinea pig fashion icon, Lovely Rita, has a new Easter bonnet!  Doesn't she look beautiful?  She is here representing the Prairie Pigs, to wish all of our friends far and wide a very happy Easter.

We can still see a lot of snow on the ground outside the piggy room window, but all the more reason for a piggy to supply her own colour by wearing a bonnet festooned with flowers!  At long last, the sun is beginning to feel stronger and we are looking forward to seeing the snow and ice melt so the grass (yum yum) can start to grow again.  Spring always comes along eventually, though sometimes she does seem to be taking her own sweet time... 

 

Happy Easter from the Piggyfriends.

Hello Readers. Caoimhe Piggyfriend here. I am not going to eat that chocolate egg so Slave has given me this nice grass. I am not sure whether that is to keep me from running off or because I am a good girl and am sitting still for the photo.

We all want to wish everyone a Happy Easter.

Slave does not like bunnies in the garden as they sneak in and eat our veggies but these toy ones seem quite safe to me. They are not even stealing my grass.